Valedictorian files COC for ARMM governor

COTABATO CITY, Philippines - The 2015 class valedictorian of a public high school in Barangay Tukanalipao in Mamasapano, Maguindanao on Thursday filed for Gov. Mujiv Hataman of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) his candidacy for a second term.

Norombai Utto, 17, said she volunteered to bring to the regional office here of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) Hataman’s certificate of candidacy for ARMM governor to show support for his administration’s peace and development initiatives.

ARMM’s regional vice governor, Haroun Al-Rashid Lucman, is also seeking reelection as Hataman’s running mate. They both belong to the administration’s ruling Liberal Party.

Hataman and Lucman ran in tandem during the ARMM’s 2013 regional polls.

“We need leaders who have proven their commitment to the people, especially to the Bangsamoro youth. Gov. Hataman is such a leader and I am so proud of his leadership,” Utto said.

Utto graduated valedictorian last April in Hadji Salik Kalaing National High School in Mamasapano town, less than a kilometer away from the scenes of the deadly January 25, 2015 encounters between policemen, guerillas of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and a third group, the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), which shook the nation to its core.

At least 44 members of the police’s Special Action Force (SAF), 17 MILF members and five innocent villagers were killed in the encounters, now most known as the infamous “January 25 Mamasapano incident.”

The Hataman administration is currently implementing more than P80 million worth of infrastructure projects in Mamasapano town as a special intervention meant to foster normalcy and improve the productivity of farmers in the area following the carnage, which challenged the now 18-year government-MILF peace initiative.

Utto, who belong to an impoverished peasant family, is now studying an education course at the Mindanao State University in Datu Odin town in the first district of Maguindanao as a scholar of ARMM’s education department.

"More than anything else, what I truly admire in Gov. Hataman is his commitment to the Mindanao peace process,” Utto said.

Utto said Hataman is not a warlord and is at peace with political leaders in the autonomous region, regardless of tribal and parochial identities.

The ARMM covers Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur, which are both in mainland Mindanao, and the island provinces of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi, where there are warlords perpetuating political power through their money and well-armed partisan factions.